Dancing With the Devil (10 page)

My heart exploded inside my
chest. Pure agony. As if the legion of angels here were calling to me for help.

And there was nothing I could do.

Helplessness ate at my insides. I
shoved it back, bent forward at the waist and rubbed my chest. “I feel them,
but I can’t see them.”

“I feel them too.” Lucifer’s
voice was unusually soft, reverent. “Their souls are locked away inside the
stones.”

“Like my mother’s soul inside the
Tree of Knowledge?”

Luc frowned. “Why do you believe
your mother’s soul is in the Tree?”

“Zayfeer said…”

“Zayfeer?” He shook his head in
disgust. “Zayfeer is a traitor to our cause. Don’t believe anything he tells
you.”

Great. “Why would he lie about
that?”

“He lies about everything. His
only goal is to worm his way back into Heaven. If I could, I’d rip his head
off. He’s the one who kidnapped you after the fall and forced you back to
Heaven and your prison.”

“So that’s why he and Nikita
disappeared when you arrived.”

“He was here?”

“Didn’t you see him?”

A muscle twitched in Luc’s jaw. “He
did it again. And I helped him.”

“Did what?”

Luc’s hands went to his waist as
he looked out over the city. The king looking over his fallen kingdom. “Return
you to purgatory.”

He glanced at me, his brows
forming a deep V over his eyes. “I knew God would keep trying to separate us,
but Gabriel failed to take your soul. Cephiel failed to keep you away from me.
Even the Mark of Cain failed at keeping us apart. God freed Zayfeer in exchange
for him capturing you and bringing you here. Next stop? Heaven and your prison
cell.”

I swallowed hard. Next stop, my
ass. “So my mother’s soul is not trapped in the tree? Why could I feel her,
then, when the Axeman was trying to cut it down?”

“The Axeman?”

I waved him off. “Did I sell my
mother’s soul to you?”

“She was your first. But you must
understand. The souls you brokered to me are all fallen angels who’ve been lost
to us. Those who were punished with life on Earth and whose souls we’re harvesting
from their human forms in order to free them.”

“My mother is—
was
—a fallen
angel?”

“No, she was human, but because
she allowed God to impregnate her with your soul, she became one of the Chosen.
Like Mary, the human female who carried Jesus.”

“Holy bananas, Batman.” You’d
think by now nothing would surprise me. “My mother had sex with
God
?”

A grin lifted the corner of Luc’s
mouth. “Not in that way. He merely kissed her in order to transfer your soul
into her womb. When she and your human father procreated, your soul entered
this body.” He pointed at me.

Parent-sex was still
eww
, so
I slammed the mental door shut on that image. “The picture in the church. The
painting. It looked like my mother and that angel were doing more than kissing.”

“What painting?”

I explained the painting
depicting my mother and the angel. Lucifer eyed me intently. “Was Zayfeer
involved in this?”

Zayfeer. The liar who’d betrayed
us. Maybe he
was
a liar and a traitor. Didn’t mean he didn’t speak some
truths. “He showed me another painting with you as a dragon in it. Are you
saying he lied about that, too? Because I saw you, Luc. Scales and all.”

The dark gaze I loved slid away.
He said nothing, just stared at the ruined city.

This was getting me nowhere fast.
“What about the souls in the trees you freed when you set the forest on fire?
Zayfeer said those were souls I’d brokered for you. Were they human or fallen
angels?”

“They were the Fallen. Ones who
had been reincarnated like you into human bodies. But their magic is too
powerful for the limitations those bodies imposed. Their appetites much too
strong. You recognized that in them, recognized Heaven in them, and brought
them to me.”

“The humans…they don’t know
they’re angels, do they?”

“Most don’t. But when the time
comes—when we’ve found all of them—your soul will be healed. Their souls as
well. Our family will be together once more.”

My magic warmed at the thought. My
heart did too. “And my mother. Where
is
her soul?”

Luc pointed at the city. “Here.
Somewhere.”

Somewhere. How…unspecific.

But at least God didn’t have it. “Can
you find it?”

“No.” He glanced at me. “But you
can.”

Straightening as much as I could,
I kicked at the sand with frustration and started down the hill. Something
inside me needed to touch the stone and marble prisons trapping my angels.

Yes, they were
my
angels.
My actions had put them there. “And the others trapped here with my mom? How do
we free them?”

Luc walked by my side as we
descended the hill. When he didn’t answer, I stopped and looked at him. He stopped,
but didn’t meet my eyes as he shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Really?”

“I wasn’t even sure the city
would be here.” He started walking again and I hurried to catch up. “But this
is your purgatory. Whatever the answer is, it’s yours to discover.”

“No pressure or anything.”

We shared a smile and Luc took my
hand.

At the arched entry to the city,
the two of us paused. A current of magic rode the air. A second current
trickled over the sand. The two teased my senses and wound around my arms and
legs. I felt a click inside my chest. My magic seemed to be syncing with whatever
lay here.

The energy of the trapped angels
grew heavier, suffocating. I had to get them out. Release them from their
prisons. But how?

Bracing myself, I stepped across
the sandy threshold and went to find out.

Wind whistled through the
abandoned buildings. Sand blew across my feet. My fingers trailed over the tops
of the white marble statues. Ironically, most were of angels, like you’d see in
a garden.

Or a graveyard.

An angel graveyard.

I shuddered.

A part of me denied this was happening.
That any of this could be real. This was purgatory—as everyone kept reminding
me—and God enjoyed sick jokes.

Maybe the City of Lost Angels was
a figment of my imagination like the deserted town of Eden I’d seen on my first
trip here. Maybe the forest was a fake.

Maybe this version of Luc was
too.

I snuck a glance his way. He
stood on the partially buried steps of a gothic church, so old, the thick
pillars supporting the overhang were wrapped in dead ivy and splitting in
multiple places. At the top of the entrance, jutting out over the stairs like a
figurehead on the prow of a ship, was a large black-winged angel carved from
stone. His face was passive, almost peaceful. His arms opened wide, beckoning
us inside.

Luc looked at me. I nodded for
him to go on without me. I’d had enough of churches.

He climbed the steps and
disappeared inside.

I continued along, weaving in and
out of dozens of statues, pillars and slabs of concrete engraved with strange
sigils. When I touched them, the sigils glowed. My magic hummed a song, and
with each touch, picked up another chord to add to the melody. The wind lifted
my hair, teasing it around my face.

Laying my hand on a large stone,
I focused my magic.

Break.

The stone stayed firm.

Open.

Zilch.

I channeled harder, squeezing my
eyes shut and gripping the stone with both hands.

Release.

The tiniest of pulses tickled my
palms. A heartbeat? I pressed my hands tighter to the stone, straining to feel
it again. Nothing. Either it had disappeared or I’d imagined it.

Pressing my hands against the
cold stone once more, I redoubled my efforts.

Release!

Another pulse, almost too weak to
sense, but the magic, the energy,
was
there, struggling to reach me as
hard as I was to reach it.

A familiar tickle. The warm rush
of knowledge. The pulse and I were connected.

“Mom?”

I hung on, ticking off the
seconds, then minutes in my mind. The shadows grew thicker, the night closing
in on me, but there was nothing more from the stone.

Maybe I
had
imagined it.
Or just wanted it so badly, I created it.

I hung my head, released my hold.
The wind caressed my cheeks, softly.

When I lifted my gaze, I saw the
sigils come to life. They glowed in the dark, a jagged trail lighting a path
back to the crumbling church.

“I feel you,” I murmured to the angels.
“I hear you. You’re not lost any more.”

The wind rose and died as if the
angels issued a collective sigh.

My bones ached from the weighty
magic. While I stood there racking my brain for a solution and wondering how
the hell I’d managed to end up here, a fireball erupted inside the church.

Flames burst from the openings
and lit up the night. And then, without warning, they disappeared.

It happened so fast, I wasn’t
sure it was real. “Luc!” I ran toward the church, following the lighted trail.
As I neared, the building morphed into Immaculate Conception.

Immaculate Conception with a
Lucifer figurehead and a couple million years’ worth of abandonment? Leave it
my purgatory to play mix and match.

“Luc?” I called as I climbed the
stairs two at a time. “You in there? Are you okay?”

“He’s…indisposed,” a familiar
voice said.

Zayfeer stepped from the shadowed
entrance, sword drawn and glowing. “And it’s time for you to go back to jail.”
He gave me that smug smile. “There’s a nice little prison cell waiting for you
in Heaven.”

Boy, I’d had enough of this guy
and that damn smirk.

I stood my ground and prepped my
magic. “Then you’d better call in reinforcements, because I’m not going
willingly.”

The smile widened. “Thought you
might say that.”

Behind him, shadows moved. Big
shadows.

Angels.

Archangels.

Four more swords appeared, all
glowing with heavenly light and illuminating the faces of the warriors holding
them.

Gabriel.

Michael.

And a couple I didn’t recognize
but could guess. Raphael and Uriel. I’d seen them in the war footage the Tree
had granted me.

“Five against one?” I chuckled,
hoping it sounded casual and unworried. My insides were shaking. “I must be one
kick-ass witch if it takes all of you to bring me down.”

They formed a line and pointed their
swords at my chest. Michael patted Zayfeer on the shoulder. “Your trap worked,
good and faithful servant. Well done. Your Father will be pleased. We’ll take things
from here.”

Zayfeer frowned. “But I’m
supposed to transport her to Heaven.”

Gabriel fluttered his wings. “Your
orders are to stand down.”

Talk about a traitor. My mind
began forming an anti-angel spell. I’d sent Gabe back to Heaven once. I could
it again. I just wasn’t sure if I could handle all of them at the same time. “Come
on, guys. Can’t we all just get along?”

Michael’s eyes blazed with anger.
His loud, inhuman voice rang in my ears and echoed off the pillars. “Suffer not
the witch.”

Gabe stepped slightly in front of
the others, never taking his eyes off me. “I’ve got this, my brothers.”

He pointed the tip of his sword
at the base of my throat. “It’s time you stopped screwing up the order of the
Universe.”

I swallowed down my fear and
locked my magic into overdrive. “And it’s time you went straight to Hell.”

Gabriel lowered the sword. His ginormous
hand latched onto my neck so fast, I didn’t have time to flinch. He lifted me
off the ground so I was eye to eye with him. “I prefer Earth.”

I kicked my legs, swung my arms.
Made contact with his tree-trunk legs and steely shoulders, but I might as well
have been a bug buzzing around his face. He spread his wings, effectively
screening us from the others, and whispered between gritted teeth. “Be still,
witch. I’m trying to help you.”

Gabriel help
me
? I stopped
fighting and whispered back. Whispering was all I could do since the big lug
was squeezing off my oxygen. “Did Keisha send you?”

“Adam and Eve tried to warn you,
but as usual, you were too stubborn to listen.” He rippled his wings in a show
of power and raised his voice. “Prepare yourself to meet the Maker, Amo.”

“Now, wait a minute there, big
guy.” Zayfeer appeared in my peripheral vision. “God and I have a deal. I bring
her to Heaven and I get to stay.”

Gabriel’s fierceness was nothing
to sneeze at. His wings expanded full-length. He flared his nostrils and sent a
wave of powerful mojo at Zayfeer. “You dare argue with me, Fallen one?”

Zayfeer flinched as Gabe’s magic
slapped him and he raised his shining sword. “I’d dare just about anything
these days to stay out of purgatory.”

Gabriel swung his sword at Z’s
head, still holding onto me. My legs dangled like a rag doll’s and I gripped
his wrist to ease the hold he had on my neck. Zayfeer ducked and jabbed at
Gabe’s thigh. The archangel swerved, swinging me around.

“Enough!” a shout rang out. Loud,
insistent.

God-like.

Lucifer emerged from the church,
twice his normal size and bearing down on Gabe. Gone was the business suit and
in its place…nada. All Devil everywhere my eyes landed, and, wow…I blinked.
Blinked again. Gave up and stared openly.

There was no getting around it.
His nakedness never failed to impress.

Lucifer’s wings had been
restored, their black tips, like the dragon’s, sparked as he walked. Even from
this distance, I could feel his heat, his magic. Power rolled off him in waves.

Zayfeer felt it too. He shuffled back,
nearly falling in his hurry to retreat. The other archangels shifted to let Luc
pass, and in the process, they all grew bigger as well.

Hallucination
. I must have
eaten a purgatory-laced mushroom and now was seeing things, because ditto on
the wow factor.

The Devil, naked and taller than
Shaquille O’Neal, was headed my way, with everything…well,
moving
in a
shocking display of sin. Undulating. Swinging heavily. You get the picture.

I would have swallowed hard
except for the fact Gabe still had me dog-collared. My heart pitter-pated and I
bit my tongue to keep from drooling.

Luc sauntered down the stairs.
His gaze never left me and I reared back as best I could when I noticed his pupils
were blood red. That little fact had escaped me up to this point. My attention
had been a little distracted.

“Release the witch.”

Gabriel said something under his
breath in a language I didn’t understand. A swear, by the sound of it. His hand
opened and I plopped unceremoniously to the sandy ground at Luc’s feet. Gabe
retreated.

The Devil stalked me asI scooted
backwards on my butt until my back hit a marble slab jutting up from the sand. “Luc?”

My voice squeaked. I told myself
it was because Gabriel, the weasel, had done serious damage to my vocal chords.

That had to be it. Not the fact my
bladder, and every other organ in my body, quaked in fear. “Are you okay?”

“No, he’s not okay.” Zayfeer snarled
from somewhere on my right. “They’ve turned him! Look at his eyes.”

Turned him into what? Lucifer and
his red eyes glared down at me. Anger, determination, and a heavy dose of
retribution shone in those unnatural orbs.

Not an ounce of compassion or
love. None of the vulnerability I’d seen earlier.

Not good. I struggled to gain my
footing, my flight or fight instincts kicking in hard. I glanced at Gabriel as
I stood up. “What have you done to him?”

Gabe looked at his feet.

Luc ignored me and spoke to the
others. “She is mine.”

He reached out as if to touch my
forehead. As big as he was, his hand completely encompassed my head. “I will
send her to Heaven.”

Once on Earth, he’d touched me on
the forehead and it was lights out. This might have been my purgatory, but this
wasn’t
my Luc and I wasn’t going to let whatever version of him this was
send me anywhere.

I snatched his hand and held it
between both of mine, pouring my magic at him. “Luc, it’s me, Amy. Um…” I
thought about my angel name. Maybe that would trigger his memory. “Amo.
Remember? You don’t want to send me to Heaven. We can’t be together if I’m up
there.”

He stared at my hands.
Hesitating.

A ripple of power flashed through
his body, his muscles undulating and swelling. The tips of his wings flared to
life. They spread in a huge arc, red-orange flames shooting from them. His skin
grew taut, stretching as his body began to morph.

Oh, boy.

Zayfeer’s voice edged closer. “Way
to go, witch.”

The other archangels ran for
cover as the dragon burst forth. A beast grew where my lover had been. Bones
snapped, skin became scales, hair disappeared.

One minute, he was Luc. The next,
he wasn’t.

The shift complete, Luc leaned
his elongated, horned head down so we were face to face.

And then he bellowed like the dragon
he was.

Hot air licked my face and blew back
my hair. I braced, refusing to run.

“Here.” Zayfeer’s sword flew at
me. “Slay the dragon, Amo.”

I caught the sword without
thought, simply reacting. The handle was cold and alien in my hand, but as my
body warmed it, the blade glowed with a faint pink light.

My light. The light of love.

A surge of power ran up my arm
and danced with my magic. It felt good. Felt right.

Until I looked in the dragon’s
eyes.

The red pupils were dilated,
smoke issued from his nose. His body tensed, straining forward. He sniffed me.

“Slay the damn dragon!” Zayfeer
yelled.

The red-eyed gaze dropped to the
sword, then rose to meet mine.

My heart broke a little. There
was no recognition there. No desire or caring.

Only hate.

Luc hated me.

My knees went weak.

No, I told myself.
This isn’t
really Luc. He’s locked away somewhere deep inside
.

And then he lunged.

Two tons of dragon lunged for my
throat.

I ran with all my might, forcing
my poor human legs to carry me back to the Tree of Knowledge. That tree was my
only hope. Get the dragon there and force him to touch it. To remember.

It was the only thing I could
think of to bring Luc back to me.

Shouts erupted and I heard a loud
swishing noise. The dragon taking flight.

On the way to the Tree, he
swooped over me a dozen times. Why he didn’t land or clutch me in his giant
claws, I don’t know. I was the mouse; he was the cat toying with me.

My lungs burned and my limbs shook.
Still, I pressed on through the burnt forest, carrying Zayfeer’s sword. The
pink light grew brighter, illuminating my way.

As I drew close to the Tree of
Knowledge, I gripped the hilt like a mad woman. Could I really use it against
Luc? Against his beast?

If this plan didn’t work, I might
have to.

A shadow passed overhead and fire
rained down. Out of breath, I found the Tree and sagged against it, raising the
sword to light the forest around me.

Taking a fortifying breath, I
called to the night. “I’m here, dragon.”

The ground vibrated. In the
distance, a trail of fire emerged, racing in my direction. The souls of the
lost angels hovered near me. I secured my back to the Tree and tried to come up
with an easy way to get Luc to touch it.

Just touching it wouldn’t be
enough. For the Tree to work, I’d have to hold him against it long enough for
the memories to surface.

Piece of cake, right?

The dragon emerged from the
ruined forest and all logical thought evaporated. He strolled up to me and once
again stuck his head in front of my face.

Every puff of his breath released
pain and confusion. My magic reached out to him, but he reared back as if it
hurt.

He eyed the sword.

I lowered it, then let it fall at
my feet. “Do what you will to me, Lucifer.” I sent a wave of comforting magic
his way. “I love you more than Heaven or Earth or any god. I will not fight
you.”

The dragon tilted his head,
sniffed my hair, my cheek, my neck. His hot breath seared my skin. Sweat broke
out along my hairline.

Lingering over my chest, he placed
his snout at heart-level.

My pulse beat rapidly in the base
of my throat. My heart slammed against my chest, determined to escape its
rib-clad prison.

I held still. “That’s my heart
and it’s beating for you.”

Luc shifted his head back a few
inches, his red gaze locked on my heart area. Hope rose inside me. He
understood. My love had reached him.

Everything was going to be okay,
even if I never saw the earth and my real life again.

And then the dragon reared back
and slammed one of its giant horns into my chest.